News Hits

New York Times looking for North End residents

The New York Times kicked off a series this week on Detroit's North End neighborhood. It's the first of what will likely be many stories on the city's efforts to rebuild itself as it prepares to exit bankruptcy. As writer John Eligon says in today's story, tracking "what happens in this neighborhood this year and next will tell a lot about whether this metropolis, with nearly 690,000 residents, can rebuild." More from the Times:

[Mayor Mike Duggan's] administration has started forcing owners to fix up their abandoned or run-down properties or lose them, an initiative that already has targeted dozens of homes in two of the North End’s finer areas and is expected to reach Arden Park by year’s end. The city has paid developers to rehabilitate almost 40 abandoned houses in a 24-block area just west of Woodward and to get them occupied by the end of the year.

As part of the series, the Times put out a call for North End residents who would be interested in talking with reporters about life in the neighborhood, and what they hope to see happen in Detroit in the coming years. The newspaper stresses that comments may be published in the future, but personal information would be withheld.